Duncan Forbes

These first few weeks have been spent organizing our recruitment processes, trying to get a feel for the social enterprise landscape, and networking with as many people as possible. Overall, Holland appears to already have a robust infrastructure designed to support entrepreneurship. For example, the country has multiple entrepreneur accelerator programs in different cities; numerous Universities have “Centers for Entrepreneurship”; individuals are organizing regular entrepreneur meet-ups, and other institutions are promoting large weekend events, all in an attempt to promote entrepreneurship. However, it appears only a small percentage of the groups and organizations are specifically targeting social entrepreneurs.

On July 7th, I had the chance to attend the Startup Weekend Amsterdam. In 54-hours, individuals introduced an idea for a product or service, formed teams, made a plan, designed a prototype, and pitched their new business. I was blown away by what people were able to produce in such a short period of time, several teams created working apps and websites in only a matter of hours. It was a great introduction to the passion behind entrepreneurship in Holland.

Soon, Village Capital Scouts will begin hosting VilCap Mondays every Monday evening, around the world, as a way to promote entrepreneurship and Village Capital. On July 15th, we hosted the first VilCap Monday in The Netherlands. We had a great turnout with about twenty people joining us at the offices of enviu to learn about the program. Enviu is a social enterprise incubator in Rotterdam that starts world changing companies designed to solve social and ecological issues. Check out their website, enviu, they have some great stuff going on!

Later in the week, I returned to Rotterdam to attend the Rotterdam Startups Meetup. Leon Pals is the founder of the Meetup and Evolv, an organization and weekend event designed to support entrepreneurs. The meetup was a mix of entrepreneurs, edupreneurs developers, friends, and people just interested in knowing more about the start-up scene. The meetup was at an old house near Rotterdam Central Station that is being developed into a co-working space for education related startups (edupreneurs) and casually referring to itself as EduVilla.

In addition to attending these events, I’ve had the chance to continue to meet with numerous inspiring entrepreneurs. Some of the highlights include:

• Hajo van Bielen, from Text to Change, who has figured out a way to disseminate critical, lifesaving information to millions of people in Africa and South America via text message.
• Shailindra Goerdial, has over 20 years of experience owning and operating car washes throughout The Netherlands, is trying to bring a new waterless car washing technology to market with Ecocarwash Mobile. He has the potential to save millions of liters of water everyday.
• Stan de Ridder, from SolarSwing, who is working with a team of experts who have designed a transparent solar panel that can both produce  energy and allow light to pass through it, making solar panels much more versatile.

I’m exited to continue biking, thinking, learning, getting inspired, and trying to find more social entrepreneurs in The Netherlands! If you were wondering, I did in fact ride my bike to most of these events and meetings.

Duncan and Adine in front of the Haarlem train station.

I spent my first two weekends in Holland reconnecting with family and friends I have not seen in 11 years. I took a short train ride from my apartment in Osdorp to Haarlem and visited with my Mom’s cousin Adine. She was very kind and showed me around the city for several hours, we had a great lunch, visited a market, and tour a beautiful old cathedral in the middle of town.

Duncan with Kristiaan outside his apartment.

The next weekend, I traveled to The Hague to visit an old friend and to Rotterdam to visit another cousin.  Through an exchange program in high school,  Kristiaan lived with my family for a few weeks during the fall of 2001. In return, his family opened their home to me and my brother the summer of 2002. We had a great time biking around The Hague and reconnecting. He is now on his way to South East Asia for vacation and he is scheduled to visit my host family in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam.

Then, I had the privilege to spend some time with Ton van Tienhoven. He was married to my mom’s cousin Louise and is standing strong at 97 years old. We talked of my grandfather and other family members I know only by name and had dinner at De Schone Lei on Kralingse Lake. During dinner, Ton kept asking me, “Can you believe that a beautiful place like this is in the middle of Rotterdam?” Sadly, Ton’s memory is fading very quickly, but when I asked him about his health he said, “I feel like I’m 50 or 60 years old.”

Ton and Duncan at Kralingse Plas.

The Village Capital NL program us up and running! It took me a little bit to get my blog off the ground, but here we go!

I have only been in The Netherlands for 2.5 short weeks and I have been thrilled with the response to the Village Capital program and the growing ecosystem of social entrepreneurship throughout the country.

On July 4th, over 80 people attended a very successful kick-off of the program at The HUB Amsterdam and we were joined by our great partners at the DOEN Foundation and Sproutside. Here’s a link for some pictures and an event recap, VilCap NL is official and live!

I’ve already had fascinating and inspiring conversations with dozens of entrepreneurs and potential program sponsors including (but not limited to) Chris Monaghan at Metabolic, Laura Nino Caceres at Thought Refinery, Stijn van Balen at Creative Crowds, Rogier van Beugen at KLM Airlines (Innovation Department), and Arpita Maity at One Penny.

The best news of all! I got a bike and I can now explore The Netherlands and social entrepreneurship by bike!

I get to ride this hog for the next three months! It’s the most traditional Dutch style bike called an Oma Fiet (Grandma Bike).